Nero

10

Two days later, when Acte finally showed her face by arrangement at Silia's, I still hadn't got the horror out of my bones.

'He's very upset,' she said. They were her first words, before she had even sat down.

Silia and I both stared at her. 'He's upset?' I said. 'Serapis!'

Acte rubbed her puffy eyes. She looked terrible, and I doubt whether in these two days she'd slept at all. 'Of course he is! He didn't enjoy doing it, you know. He felt really bad later.'

I couldn't trust myself to comment. Getting up from the folding stool where I'd been sitting when the slave brought her in I began to pace the room.

'Do sit down, Titus,' Silia said from her chair by the pool. 'You're making me giddy.'

'He was frightened.' Acte was glaring at me. 'He always lashes out when he's frightened. It's not his fault.'

'Even frightened people draw the line at murder, dear,' I said. 'Sane ones, anyway.'

'Lucius is sane!' Acte snapped. Then she dropped her gaze. Her long, slim fingers twisted together. 'Well…'

'Exactly.' I pulled up the stool. 'Admit it. The boy's barking mad.'

There was a long silence.

'It took him ages to admit he was responsible,' Acte said at last in a low voice. 'To me, I mean. To everyone else he's still insisting Britannicus had a fit or swallowed the poison by accident. Seneca and Burrus say they believe him, but you can see they're just being…careful.'

'Indeed,' I said drily. '"Careful" is right. Where was the poison, by the way?'

'In the water jug.'

'Ah. Clever.' That explained Lucius's instructions to the wine slave about further diluting the boy's wine. Everyone else's would've had the correct amount of water already mixed in. 'I'm surprised he didn't kill the other lad while he was at it. The governor's son.'

'Oh, but he wouldn't! Lucius isn't a murderer!'

'Oh, Serapis!' I turned away from her in disgust.

'What about Agrippina, dear?' Silia said quickly.

'She's keeping her distance.' Acte picked absently at a broken nail. 'But that's another thing. Lucius is terribly worried that she's angry with him.'

'He's what?' I genuinely couldn't believe my ears. 'Oh, my dear girl! Oh, how simply marvellous!'

Acte had the grace to look embarrassed. 'Petronius, you don't understand! What his mother thinks is important to him, very important. He's afraid she doesn't love him any more.'

I took a deep breath. 'Let's get this straight, darling. The emperor insults Agrippina in public, pretends he's poisoning her, actually does poison her stepson in front of her eyes, and the poor dear's afraid that she mightn't love him any more?'

'That's right.'

'So what the hell does he expect? A round of applause?'

Silia held up a hand. 'Let Acte explain, Titus,’ she said quietly.

Acte frowned. 'Yeah, I know it sounds…odd, but like I said you don't understand because you don't know Lucius like I do. After everyone left he was okay. Really high, you know? So…'

'Okay means the same as really high in your vocabulary, does it? I see.'

'Titus!'

Acte shot me a sideways glance. 'He kept saying, "Now she'll have to love me," and "Wouldn't Uncle Gaius have been proud?"' Oh, Jupiter! 'But then when I finally got him to bed he just lay curled up, saying she wouldn't love him any more because he was bad.'

'For God's sake!' I leaned back, forgetting in my anger that I was sitting on a stool, and almost overbalanced. 'Lucius is a grown man! That's the kind of language I'd expect from a six-year-old!'

'That's the point I'm trying to make, Petronius,' Acte said patiently. 'He is a child, in many ways.'

'He's the fucking ruler of the world, darling, and don't you forget it! And I don't like that bit about Gaius, either.' Gaius — Caligula — had murdered his quondam co-heir Gemellus. If Lucius took to regarding Caligula as a model of behaviour then we were in the shit up to our eyeballs.

'It's not his fault!' Acte snapped. 'It's the Empress! She has him tied up in knots!'

'I agree, Titus,' Silia said.

I stared at her. 'You what?'

'Oh, I'm not defending him. What he did was inexcusable. But that woman is a spiritual Lamia.'

Despite my anger, I saw her point. Lamia is the nursery bogey who steals children from their cradles, eats their flesh and sucks their blood. It was a fair parallel to draw. If Lucius was turning into a monster then a large part of the blame was Agrippina's. Even so…

I got up and poured myself a cup of wine.

'What has he done with the body?' I asked: Britannicus's death had still not been officially announced.

'He had it burned.' Acte's voice was toneless. 'We buried the ashes in the palace cellars. Petronius, he's suffering, don't you understand?'

I drank my wine and said nothing; frankly, I couldn't trust myself. Whatever sympathy I could muster most certainly did not extend to poor dear Lucius. The little bastard was a disaster waiting to happen and we'd be far better off without him.

'I'm afraid, Titus, that in this instance I'm on Acte's side. Lucius deserves his chance,' said Silia. 'Dreadful though this whole thing is I think it may turn out to be for the best in the end.'

I sighed.

'I'm sorry, my dear, but I disagree. The boy's mad and bad both. Unfortunately he's also Emperor of Rome. Let's just hope Seneca and Burrus can keep him in bounds.'

Acte squared her jaw.

'Of course we can,' she said.

'Bully for you, darling.' I drained my wine-cup. 'Personally I intend to keep my head down.'

I did. By the gods I did. Not that it had any effect, mind.